The 81st Entry
RAF Halton Aircraft Apprentices
Sept 1955 - July 1958

ISSUE No.17 - NOVEMBER 2008
81st ENTRY NEWSLETTER
Editor: Mike Stanley

The Further Adventures of Alan Lowther (Armourer) by Alan Lowther

Hong Kong (July 1960 to January 1963) part 2

In late 1960 I went off to RAF Seletar to take my Cpl/Tech board. In those days it involved a week in the trade training facility being grilled every day by a Ch/Tech, whose name escapes me, but I did meet him again some years later when he was on the Bomb Disposal Unit at RAF Bicester. My basic knowledge was fine but my in-service knowledge was limited to Canberras and Venoms. The Chief's forte was obviously Javelins and that was what I got all week. Needless to say I failed (59%) so it was back to Kai Tak and some more studying.

1961.

Next time I went up I arranged a couple of weeks at Tengah for some work on Javelins (60 Sqdn) Hunters (20 Sqdn) as well as some bay work on Aden guns and Firestreak. I worked together with a Snr/Tech who was taking his board the week before me and we made best use of the time available as Tengah worked (flew) 18 hours a day. I was billeted in Learoyd Block, which was right next to the end of the runway and you didn't need an alarm clock as the Javelins started at 5 am and a pair took off every 15 minutes until they were all airborne. The worst bit was the low booming resonance when the engines were just above idling. Tengah was a very busy place at this time and in addition to the resident squadrons there were Scimitars, Sea Vixens and Gannets of the RN, F86 Sabres of the RAAF from Butterworth, 45 Sqdn Canberras of the RNZAF and a couple of Vulcans from UK. Additionally there were some odd and sods such as Meteor target tugs. Quite impressive seeing that lot lined upon the dispersal. I met up with Cpl Ken Butcher of RNZAF who was one of the NZ AAs in 2 Wing 3 Sqdn, and we had a long chat over a few beers. He and another NZ App, 'Kitch' Kitchingman had both gone back to NZ and onto flying training, Ken had been kicked off, something to do with crashing a Harvard and Kitch had left the RNZAF and was sheep farming in Taranaki. I believe Ken Butcher was later commissioned as an engineering officer. I also met an ex-81st guy on 60 Sqdn (McClellan) who I've never heard of since. Some of the guys just seemed to disappear without trace, whatever happened to McLanachan, Squires, Henry and many others? Anyway, after a concentrated couple of weeks at Tengah it was off to Seletar for the second attempt at the Cpl/Tech board. In our chat before starting I asked the Chief how the Snr/Tech had got on the week before and he said, "Brilliant, he knew everything, I passed him with 61%!" I remember thinking at the time that 61% for knowing everything was pretty hard marking! For me, this time round was totally different and I couldn't put a foot wrong. Everything I got was to do with Canberras or Venoms. The last task I got on the Friday afternoon was to work out how much metal I would need to make a large number of the same item. The answer was straight out of the AP3158 so it was no problem. Chief asks me where I learned to do that so I tell him and he replies, "Show me". I duly turn to the relevant page and he said, " Well, I didn't know that", so I guess I taught him something that week. Anyway I passed so there was a bit of a celebration in the Sailing Club that evening.

On Saturday afternoon I turned up at the sailing club to find all the troops sat on the lawn in uniform and with kit bags, weapons etc. I ask what's happening and am told that they are waiting to go to Borneo as something has kicked off. They all eventually departed to board the Beverley for Borneo. I didn't give it much thought until I went to Movements on Monday morning to sort out my flight back to Kai Tak only to be told that there were no flights to KT in the foreseeable future. I was told to go back to the trade-training centre and they would sort me out something to do. I eventually finished up servicing Bofors guns and Oerlikons in the MU until I ran out of work after about a week and the Chief said there was nothing else to do. So back to the TT centre and there is no work so they ask where they can contact me and I say the Sailing Club (which was just across the road from the TT Centre). I spent the next few days sailing and sunning myself and then I get a message to report to the TT Centre. I duly report and they ask me if I would like to do a patrol on one of the 67 ft High Speed Launches (HSL) and look after the guns (Oerlikons). Being into boats this sounded good so I checked with movements on the transport situation to be told that nothing had changed and was unlikely to in the near future. The patrol was just a week so off I went. It was more like a weeks holiday, nothing untoward happened and the weather was good, shared watches with the crew and a week later we are back at Seletar. Still no transport and no work so it's every day at the sailing club. I made a couple of long term friends while I was there, all sailors, Tony Foster who I met up with again in Masirah and 'Bugsy' Wray who eventually married the daughter of the Governor of Malta and finished up as the permanent skipper of a 72 ft Ocean luxury yacht 'Ocean Free' owned by an insurance magnate and based in Majorca.

All good things come to an end and I got the call to report to Changi on a Monday morning for a flight back to KT. Had a bit of a party on the weekend and finished up very late in 'Pops' curry shop in Seletar village, probably not the best thing before an early morning flight. Arrived at Changi to find I had been designated Supernumerary Crew and was sat with the Air Engineer. The rest of the aircraft was full of personnel on shopping trips (which (with rank) occasionally took precedence over duty journeys in FEAF) so without the SC tag I probably wouldn't have got on board the aircraft. The aircraft was a Comet and, over the period of my stay in HK I flew between HK and Singapore in every aircraft Transport Command operated in the region - Hastings, Britannia, Beverley (via Saigon) and RNZAF Bristol Freighter (also known as the 'Vibrator') and also via Saigon. The Vietnam War was beginning to escalate and on one trip in a Beverley we landed at Saigon on the way to Changi to find that the airfield was being mortared. Needless to say we didn't stay long, just enough time to refuel and we were airborne again.

Anyway, the flight was uneventful and we landed at KT in the afternoon, I had been away six weeks for a one week promotion board.

To be continued...